Battle report: Double Trouble Practice Game

Last week, we played our first practice game for double trouble. I know I know, it's still 5 months away, but hey! Practice makes me less incompetent.

We randomised the pairings and they came out as follows:

Team 2

Me (imperial guard - Leman Russ eradicate, standard Leman Russ, 35 guardsmen including a command platoon with 4 Flamers)  & Dan (Eldar shenanigans - 3 squads of guardians/ dire avengers, a farseer and a tank with a d-flamer.)

Vs

Team 1

Topher (tyranids - flyrant, 2 tervigons and a big swarm of gaunts) & Matt (HH blood angels- contemptor dread, big unit of marines with a captain and a stormraven)

We played the 3rd mission, which for those in the know means that you set up in all four corners. For those wanting more information, we set up like this:

The Tyranids were 1A, Eldar 2A, Blood Angels 1B and I was 2B. I managed to grab a warlord traight that allowed 3 units to outflank, so we outflanked most of the Eldar army, leaving only a farseer and a d-strength tank in 2B. All of the objectives were in the right 2/3 of the map. 

pew pew pew

Our oppenants went first, and didn't have much to do but run towards me! The flyrant swooped over to try and alpha strike Dan's tank, and one of the tervigons spawned some gaunts onto a central objective. The other tervigon, plus a squad of 30 gaunts, went as fast as they could towards me. meanwhile, on my other flank, the Blood Angels began to close in, slightly slower than the space bugs. Between them, I believe they registered either 4 or six victory points in the first turn as they were mostly claim objective ones. we also lost most of an autocannon team and most of a squad of guardsmen. Whilst I say "we" I of course mean me. Dan's tank jinked and got glanced but lived on. This did mean that they didn't get first strike.

In our first turn, we drew reasonably unreachable objectives, given that they were all claim this or that number objective. We did score our first maelstrom points as a squad of guardsmen heroically ran towards the Tyranids to claim objective #3. In the psychic and shooting phase, Dan's Farseer single handely took down a Tervigon through a combination of Mind war (I think) and a Singing Spear. Im hazy on the details because I wasnt 100% paying attention. I was way to busy watch the 18 inch gap between the Tyranids and what increasingly looked like lunch close down. So i opened fire to devastating effect. It felt very dramatic having two lines of ten men shooting at an oncoming hordes whilst the tanks lobbed shells overhead. all in all, I killed 15-20 gaunts. I felt more like a man than I had done all day.

Before

After

That meant at the end of turn 1 we had 2 points - one for first strike and 1 for claiming an objective but not having an ally on another objective.

In turn 2, things started to go downhill for us. Suffice to say, the Farseer died to a drive/fly by from the flyrant, Blood angels marched further towards me (although they were put off by the battlecannon a bit I think), and most scarily, the Tyranids moved in very close. You know its going badly when you're trying to help your men die so that the Tervigon is out of combat so you can shoot it. Luckily for us the Stormraven didn't turn up, but unluckily for us i believe they achieved another 2 objectives, whilst also smashing most of my army in. so they were up something like 9-2.


In our second turn, 2 units of dire avengers showed up as well as my Platoon Command Squad, which had four flamers. I'd decided to put them in normal reserve, since I figured they'd come on from my board edge. Which mean I could jump on what was left of the small space bugs. I did. They burnt to death. True story. The dire avengers that showed up on my right flank totally wiffed, leaving it to both my Leman Russ tanks to bring down the lumbering behemoth before it reached them. And unfortunately on the other side, they were too far away to do anything. This meant we didn't scire any VPS in turn two. 

The stormraven appears!

In turn three, matts gunship flew on in fine style, and began doing things. The rest of his army advanced towards the centre of the board, holding the middle ground. Apart from the contemptor dreadnought, which was lagging behind a bit. He'd been bugging the cover and claiming an objective, doing a worthy job of stacking up VPs over the previous turns. 



dead blood angels. everywhere.

Suffice to say, over the course of the next couple of tens things didn't go well for us. I loose track of the turns, but it was 1-sided enough that we stopped recording maelstrom points! In fact, we only achieved 3 over the whole game - our third coming in the 4th turn when both leman russ tanks opened fire into the big unit of Blood Angels. Many of them died, but significantly so did their warlord, with Matt opting to catch Battlecannon shots with his Captain guy. Plus, the remaining marines marched relentlessly into the squishy elder from what I remember.



a failed late game objective grab from the leman russ



Overall, on blood points we probably were a lot closer, there weren't many space bugs left at the end of the game, and we gave the Blood angels a bit of a mauling as they moved towards the centre of the board. But by that point we were already behind significantly on both areas, so it was a tough ride.

these Dire avengers did nothing

After game thoughts

• The deployment corners makes a massive difference in this game. we went into it thinking our triple outflank was going to be great, and it proved to be our complete undoing, allowing for our opponents to focus on my army almost exclusively. When they did turn up, everything was to near the middle and the surprise was lost.
• Normal reserve however, is awesome. I may need to check with Alex, but our interpretation of coming on the long board edge allows you to just jump your opponent.
• Guardsmen may be to squishy for this deployment. My build didn't have any staying power, and I ended feeling a bit trapped.
• Objective Placement. Basic, but important. they need to be spread out, especially since they are occurring 50% of the time!

I think next time I might be tempted to try a infiltrating list, or something that doesn't need to deploy normally. Anything that has the power to break the deployment restrictions basically!

Double Trouble thoughts

After a seemingly endless procession of Star Wars related posts - you'd think that I hadn't played any 40k for months (and you'd be right!) I've written a 40k blog post. Seemed fitting to break in the 101st post with where my hobby all began. So, here we go! 

Double trouble is Alex brown's (from the fang) new tournament. You can read more about it here, but basically it's a doubles tournament with a Random partner each round. 750 each, for 1500 a side. You get bonuses for acting as a team, but prior to setting up you have no idea what you're playing with, let alone against. 

As of writing this, we don't know a lot else in terms of list construction. Is it similar to blog wars, is it different? Can you take just a formation, instead of a CAD? Can you take allies? Are you only allowed to select from the allied force org chart!? (This last one would be awesome Alex btw)

So many crazy questions. So many possible new versions of the guard codex could come out before June. So what's the point in trying  to write a list I hear you ask? Well. It helps pass the time, and it helps get my 40k mind on the go again. 

Here is my first offering:

Company Command Squad: + 1 Company Commander 60

Platoon Command Squad: 4× flamer; + 1 Platoon Commander 50
• Infantry Squad: flamer; Heavy Weapons Team (autocannon); + 1 Sergeant (power weapon) 80
• Infantry Squad: flamer; Heavy Weapons Team (autocannon); + 1 Sergeant (power weapon) 80
• Commissar 25
• Infantry Squad: + 1 Sergeant 50

Veteran Squad: 3× plasma gun; + 1 Veteran Sergeant 105

2 Wyverns 130
Leman Russ Squadron
• Leman Russ Demolisher 170

750 points

So, pretty balanced overall I think. My thoughts on this list are that it would be one that brings most things to the table. The pros for the list in my opinion are:

-50+ bodies plus three tanks. Excellent amount of board control. They are guardsmen, but it's a big amount of people to chew through. Before you even consider my partners army. 

- AP 2, in the form of 3 plasma guns and a leman russ demolisher. 

- AV 14 leman russ. I think that not all lists will be able to deal with this. 

- 2 wyverns. The real threat. People will panic against the Russ. The real threat is the wyverns. And if you shoot the wyverns then the russ is still around to take names. 

- decent anti horde. Flamers, and the wyverns have me covered here. 

- guard shenanigans. Orders to maximise my potential and a commissar to keep my bullet magnet in line to be last man. 

Bad things about this list 

- it's not got a massive punch. The main weapon (the lasgun) will struggle against some of the top tourney armies. Eg anything with toughness 5 is going to be a massive struggle. 

- low characteristics. Obv with a horde army pull get that. But in 750 points do you have enough to negate that?

- not much anti armour. As I type, I realise there is no lascannons, only 1 weapon with strength 8 or above. That probably needs to change. 

- space marines. I don't know how this army would do against marines. If my oppenant tools them out, it should be fine, but going toe to toe with 25-30 marines could be tricky. 

-flyers (in general I just ignore them in 40k now)

I think is a good first draft. I'd want to pull something with anti Armour, or something with a combat unit. I'm wondering if I need to specialise a bit and take the power weapons out. Just admit I'm going to die in combat and add more guns!

What do you guys think? Are you planning to make it in June? Have you even considered a list yet? What would use to destroy this list? Would you want to play alongside an army like this?

Unit Reviews From Blog Wars X: Winners and Loosers

I thought I'd review the performances of my units from BWX. You can watch a vlog here that details how I got on at the tournament. 

As a whole my army performed quite well, but some units did better than others. Some of my units were probably a dead weight, at least in terms of the armies that I faced, or how they performed.

The Guys (thanks mike for taking the photo!)

Telion - loser

My "sudo vindicare" gave away first strike twice! Twice! And the other game I don't think he caused a wound. Admittedly, one of the times he died he took the chaos deamon warp storm table to the face, but he underperformed. In a practice game he earns his place by killing nurglings. I'm still tempted by Marneaus Calgar.

Librarian - loser

But in addition to Telion giving away first strike, my librarian gave away warlord in the two games I won by blowing his own head of! The second time he did that, he also took a grav centurion with him! Useful for a bit of preseince, but I'm thinking about taking him out tbh. And maybe trying a bike captain.

Scouts & landspeeder storm - winner

Easily justified their cost. Gave me speed and objective secured, as well as holding my left flank in the draw until the 4th turn. Even then they only folded because they got charged by a greater daemon. If I'd of remembered in the 3rd game I could have got more points by using them better as well.

Tactical squad, with missile launcher, melta, combi melta and drop pod - winner

I was going to say that they didn't do a lot but hen I remembered that the one guy left alive was the whole reason I drew with Dan. His contesting of that central objective meant that I didn't loose that game :). None of the armies I faced classified a melta drop pod as a threat, but creative use in all three games meant that they got me line breaker (twice) and claimed a couple of points in mission 3.

2 squads of grav gun bikes. (3 bikes per squad) - winner

One of the strong performers in every game. In the first game, One squad deleted a trygon prime in a single shooting phase. In the second game they were also instrumental in the draw, helping to clear plaguebearers from my home objective and reclaim it. They were a massive bonus in the third game, giving me speed and shooting to take out two units of obliterators. As with BW9, the bikes repaid their selection.

10 sternguard in a drop pod, with 2 combi meltas, 2 combi plasmas and a lightning claw - winner

A unit that probably overperformed in the first game, was badly used in the second and in the third hit once and hard. Overall, they justified selection. In the first game, they killed a flying give tyrant and some Gaunts. In the second game, they killed nothing. (I probably should of gone for a different target!) In the third game, they dropped down, killed typhus and then got eaten by Chaos spawn and a helldrake. A good inclusion. Predictably used, but a reliable and strong addition.

Grav centurions in a drop pod - winner

This unit again had a varied experience. In the first game, their pod scattered back towards my deployment. This meant that they couldn't shoot first turn, but did end up killing hive guard, tyrant guard and the swarmlord. They turned a refused flank into a wall of death all by themselves. In the second game, as with most of my units they didn't do a great deal. They punched some chaos spawn in combat but hat was about it.

In the third game, they were amazing. Took out a land raider, a unit of chaos terminators, a chaos librarian and a helldrake. And only the raider was before the librarian blew his own head off, taking one of them with him. They made it impossible for my opponent to come towards me.

I think having them in a drop pod is excellent. Partly because it means my opponent can't pinpoint where they are going to be as easily in the setup, and then if I loose or don't have first turn they are protected.

 
Devastators 3x missile launcher, 1x lascannon
Again, a unit that piled on well i was doing well, and didnt turn the balance when i wasnt doing well. i dont know if these guys are worth it tbh. They cement my backline, and help with anti tank, but i was never in a sitaution where i thought "man im really glad i have these devastators." tbh, even in my most recent practice games they havent been pulling thier weight. Maybe i should try without them.

Lord commissar and guard blob squad with two Flamers - unsure

Overall, these guys held a space. In the first game, they held a flank against Gaunts and in the third game they infiltrated near some obliterators and then ran against them shooting (and killed one or two). In the second game, they did a job defensively in that they absorbed a charge (and then died).  The model count in my army would be very low of it wasn't for these guys, and they have the potential to absorb firepower because there is so many of them. But they don't contribute offensively very often.

Platoon command squad with four Flamers - Winner

These guys did very little, but they are outrageously good when they work. For 50 points you get for flamer templates and you could put them in a drop pod if you wanted since the one the centurions ride in is from the fast attack slot.

Stormtroopers - looser

These guys did not a lot. They got me line breaker in the second game, but in the first and third games they didn't do an awful lot. Maybe I didn't use them well in the third game, I tried to use the to kill a helldrake after all. I'm not sure if I'll keep them in.

Squadron of 2 wyverns - winner

These guys are probably my MVP. in the first game, they killed about 30 gaunts, including most of a 20 man unit of gargoyles. In the second game, their kills got me first strike and the draw, killing a unit of plaguebearers and a unit of nurglings. In the third game, they did actually die, but not before they eliminated my opponent's objective holding units of plague zombies, and most of a unit of chaos spawn. They are a key part of the "walk through your comrades corpses to get to me" strategy. So yes, definitely my MVP. 

Conclusions
Overall, these are my top 3 units from each side. im now thinking about addressing these going forwards, shifting the focus a bit. but i need to make sure its not just done on form. as they say, form is temporary, but class is permanent.  

Winners:
1: Wyerns
2: Grav Bikes (seriously better than i expected!)
3: Grav centurions (i know they get called a bit of a crutch, but they arent a knight or a superheavy.)

Loosers:
1: Devastators
2: Telion
3: Librarian (who doesnt normally blow his own head of but was useless on the day.

Vlog 5: Blog wars X tournament report

So! Here is my vlog of our experiences at the north west gaming centre on Saturday. 10 of use went from Leicester sabres to Blog Wars X, a tournament run by Alex at From the Fang. 

He's just put the standings up, and I came 11th. Annoyingly, just outside the top 10, but I had a really great three great games, and came 2nd in one of the painting competitions. So a pretty good day! It was the last blog wars, meaning that of the 18 games I played at blog wars, I only lost the first one at blog wars 3. Since then, I've not lost! Winning 14 and drawing 3. Click today's video to find out how I did this time :)

Ill follow up with a couple of unit reviews this week - for now enjoy the video!

Blog Wars X Unit Reviews - Darksun Life Vol 4

So, in a change to the advertised vlog (I will get to the x-wing one I promise, I’m just having more difficulties putting it together than I thought I would!) I’ve decided to vlog some of the units from my army that I’m taking to Blog Wars X!

It’s difficult to fit all of my 1850 point army into a short Vlog, but in summary it hasn’t change very much since last time. So still drop pods and Sternguard. The one change is that I’ve swapped Coteaz out for some imperial guard. Gives me a few more men, allows me to bulk up my line a bit.

My personal highlight from our practice games this weekend was Telion facing off against Ezekiel and half a tactical squad. He died eventually in combat, but because he died in my turn (after sniping Ezekiel the previous turn, resisting having his mind turned to jelly and then club a Tac marine to death in combat) Toph didn’t get the maelstrom points for that card.

Press play to enjoy! Feel free to comment below as well - is there anything you’d like to see me vlog in the future?

Giving in to the thoughts in my head.

So recently I've been thinking about what has is good value for points that I know of. Saint Celestine is one good example of this. I therefore propose to take her. Here is a list I have spent this evening thinking about (although its been in my head for weeks)

Nuns With Guns

Saint Celestine 115 points

Battle Sister Squad x10, 1 Meltagun 135 points

Battle Sister Squadx10, 1 Meltagun 135 points

Company Command Squad, Kell, Autocannon, Plasma Gun, 160 points

Platoon Command Squad, Autocannon, Plasma Gun, 55 Points

Squad A Lascannon, Plasma Gun, 85 Points

Squad B Lascannon, Plasma Gun, 85 Points

Squad C Lascannon, Plasma Gun, 85 Points

Squad D Autocannon, Plasma Gun, 75 Points

Mortar Team 60 Points

Autocannon Team 75 Points (freaking cheap!)

Lascannon Team 105 Points

Storm Troopers x8, Double Plasma Guns, Plasma Pistol, 168

Manticore 160

So this is the list I will be maybe trying out to see how saint Celestine works. Thou its a lot of proxy, and I feel bad. I may just stick to my normal list until I have least bought all the guard bits! But I think it has a lot of potential. You basically shove Celestine down their flank/throat, and then if they don’t shoot her she gets to hit something. If they do, then the rest of your army (including a shiny new manticore! – may have to get me one of these) blow the living hell out of them.

Not even a little subtle, and it may not work long run, but I have 2 meltaguns, 9 plasma weapons, 6 Lasscannons, 6 Autocannons, and 89 models 80 of which score. Even Dan might not table that (although I'm not certain).

Cutting open a Grey Knight

So. After an eventful day at work on Wednesday that included sexual harassment training, I rolled over to Games Workshop to play jo and his 6 model army.

For those not aware, this army has two Paladins, Draigo and two Dreadknights that both have teleport homers. Oh and a Fortress of Redemption. Yeah. My army on the other hand had over 100 gaurdsmen with a lot of plasma and melta, 3 mortars (yeah!) and 6 lascannons backed up by 6 autocannons. A 700point troops choice. Also I had ratlings, penal legion and a couple of squads of storm troopers to help max out on the heavy weapons.

We play the Relic, with standard deployment. Jo won and put his fortress down next to... the fortress of redemption that was on the board. Hmmm. The paladins and draigo manned his fortress, whilst the two flying Dreadknights stood on the battlements of the other one ready to wiz onto the objective in his first turn. I blanketed my deployment zone (literally) with all sorts of stuff, infiltrated the ratlings and outflanked a squad of storm troopers who had meltaguns. (and completely forgot about the penal legion until like, turn 4?)

I didn’t seize, and jo teleported in, took the relic with one and stood in front of the first one with the second one. He shot me up good, but didn’t take down any complete unit, meaning that he didn’t get first blood. Admittedly this could be because its hard to tell where units end and begin, but the ones he shot up either held or rallied. And crucially, he didn’t run with the relic holding dreadknight because he thought it was 6inch per turn, where as it is actually 6 inch per phase.

I then killed the dreadknight that was holding the relic. Sounds easy I know, but I did basically shoot my whole army (which is just a gun line) at this one guy. So he should have died lol. (first blood!)Next turn, he picked up the relic with the other dreadknight, and shot me some more, and ran with it to take it back towards his double fortress. I then shot off this dreadknight. Two in two turns. Highlight of the match occurred for me at this point, as I killed it with ratlings (took its final wound off).

The rest of the game revolved around a mad rush for me towards the objective,(including with the mortar team, who did die on the way) and jo’s three men and double fortresses trying to shoot me off. Turns out buildings are spectacularly hard to kill, especially multipart ones. I didn’t kill either, but did manage to get both paladins. Leaving draigo alive in a silo and actually in combat with him... err I won with linebreaker, first blood and holding onto the relic. Jo got kill the warlord.

I could tell that this army isn’t that fun to play against, partly because its hard to tell what has shot. I think I am going to have to come up with an easy to understand way of representing whos’ shot (possibly turning them the wrong way round). All in all, doubling the amount of heavy weaponary I have (and not playing dan) improved the result drastically. Plus, scattering the lascannons and autcannons into squads as well as having heavy weapons platoons of each meant they couldn’t all be so quickly picked off, because I will admit, having 3 lascannons hanging out together is pretty much always the first target.

Boldly Going to the Next Level

With the advent of 6th, many people will have looked at their armies, and said. Man that (outflanking guard army) doesn’t work anymore. I’d better get re-arranging my plastic crack!

May I present, the newly promoted Wesley Crusher:

Upgraded to platoon Sergeant, this plot hero now sports a plasma pistol, and a lightsaber. Which, since the codex says “power weapon” will count as a power axe, as he will be striking after space marines anyway, and they are his main target. At least to begin with, we will have to see how it goes. In other news, I am getting back in the saddle and playing some games tomorrow, against Dark Eldar and some form of Dark Angels. I think Ian said Deathwing. Eurgh.

I have also spent the last couple of weeks painting up some heavy weapons bases. My army consists of a lot of pinning weaponry, and the ability to blast snipe. So there are at least some of the mortars I intend to use. The heavy weapons base is great because if you have spare bases you can get 9 heavy weapons out of one box. 3 missile launchers, and either use the mortar stands for mortars or for one of the other weapons. So long as you have some spare guys lying around, you should have enough bodies for the missiles, and from there its a dream! Anyways, pics below - quite pleased with the freehand on the lascannons:

Not This Kind of Snapshot

So, 6th edition 4 games in.

My first thoughts include... you can’t assault out on an enclosed vehicle, even if its remained still. Don’t know if I like that. Since fourth there seems to be a progressive nerfing of transports.

No assaulting from reserve. Booooooooooo. Coupled with no more than half you army in reserve this is a complete shutdown of my imperial guard rebel alliance. It would not work. I have tried it out yet, but I am not hopeful. No more outflank shenanigans. I have heard some thoughts from others that they are pleased with because it stops Shrike armies. But to be honest, I think that being able to react to that kind of army is a skill. The rules weren’t broken here, but they have been fixed. If you are going to get outflanked by genestealers, then either don’t deploy near the edge, or make them kill what you want them to kill. Then shoot the life out of them. There is 50% less tactics in this area now unfortunately. I can now not do something with one of the most charecterful units in the space wolf codex that I have been doing since 3rd edition. People just wont take them, they aren’t scary anymore

AP values on CC weapons, I like.

Buildings are big castles. Great if they have battlements. I think that this will do exactly what GW wants it to, and that is sell more bastions, fortresses of redemption etc. They can be a real game changer.

Guard Rock. My 500 point list has over the course of 3 games been magnificent. 55 points for 10 men with a mortar? Yes please. Footgaurd are my new fav thing. Orders completely cover me for the Flyers snapshot issue, I will just twin link those Lasscannons.....

The allies section is very cool. I think that Tyranids should have been able to desperate ally with Guard, to represent stealer cults. Other than that, it could lead to a big dusting off of models, but with a lot of cherry picking.

I freaking love overwatch... I snapshot with a Krak missile and downed a Dark Eldar Cronos on its last wound the other day. Very cinematic.

I am loving the precision shots rule. And because of this, will be splashing eldar rangers. With a Faseer for psychic D-Fence.

Think that about covers it for now, thanks for sharing! Luke

Blog Wars Three Round Up

WARNING... this is going be a long, and texty post.

So, Me, Pete, Dan and Ian went to Blog wars 3 today. Awesome tourney, I think I actually preferred it to throne of skulls. The guys at Malestrom were excellent, and Alex Brown who runs From the Fang was a great host/organiser. Kudos to him. Check out his blog, for everything, ever. http://fromthefang.blogspot.co.uk/

The Games, in Summary. So, of the four of us, I placed last. Good stuff. I finished 20th out of 26th, with loss, draw and draw for 28 points. Pete got Loss, Win, Loss for 30 points (I think) Dan came 5th with Loss, Win, Win and the Mr Ian King placed 6th with Win, Loss, and Win, only three Game points behind Ian. Pete faced big bugs twice and got a bit frustrated, Dan got run over by the defending champion on the way to his victory, and Ian continues to punch very hard, and very fast at tourneys.

My Day.

First Game, I faced James from Sheep of war. An excellent opponent, he had a Jokaero themed list, with purifiers. Despite the fact that it was completely monkeys, he had a pretty hardcore list with three psyfldreads, Coteaz and lots of rending Lasscannons. I ended up going down 9 – 11 bottom of turn 7. I was winning bottom of turn 5, and drawing bottom of 6 I think. Highlight for me was charging Luke Skywalker into Coteaz, chopping his head off with a lightsaber and eating a Deamonhammer. Only to get back up in my go.

So I strolled back to where I belonged, in the bottom half. Game 2 saw me face a really cool guy (who I am really sorry but can’t remember his name! It may have been James I think) they were very pretty Tyranids. Lots of BIG bugs, including two Trygons, Swarmlord, Two Tervigons and 4 Hivegaurd. Highlight would have been blowing away two Trygons with the right amount of shooting. Yes, it was a lot of plasma and Lasscannon, but it was nice that it works! I should have lost this game. I know this feeling so well from the other side, you are all over your opponent, then they just realise that actually they can still get something out of the game. About my turn 4 (of 7) I realised that a draw was the best I could probly get. Whilst I was winning on 1 table quarter bottom of turn 5 (love love love going second with this list!) it ended in a draw, and after a couple of crucial roles I was able to get a draw. Which was very hard earned, and in some respects felt like a win. Total respect for the guy I played, he was brilliant with everything and I couldn’t fault him.

My Third game saw me jazz dance one table down despite my draw to 10 of 13. This time I faced a chap who I believe may have been called Scott, friends with Alex. His painting was simply beastly, total respect to him for that. He had three Predators, Mephiston (my auto loose choice) and land raider (can’t hurt those) and some other mech MSU stuff. He was I think, expecting me to outflank, but I don’t think he was expecting me to spend literally every turn chasing his predators around his back field. What units did I use for this you ask?

On their last outing for a while, I used Penal Legion. 240 points of Wesley Crusher, Starbuck and Daniel Jackson kept 540 points of Blood Angels Tanks occupied for 6 turns. Two squads with fleet, furious charge and counter attack plus Wesley rending for fun killed one and stopped the other two shooting for at 70% of the game. Brilliant. I have to say, he is the nicest opponent I have played probably all year. As for the result, it ended in a draw, but I think that is slightly because every single one of my units punched well above their weight. That is the stuff that dreams are made of.

So I ended with 28 points, in 20th place. Not too shabby. I wasn’t last, I didn’t win but I had loads of fun and really enjoyed a day out with guys. Congrats to the defending champ, the steamroller with nothing but a kill setting... Atreides from SoS! Are we going next time? If Alex will have us, hell yes.

We could talk about God, but i'd rather do this...

In other news, here is an army list I created whilst everybody else in the room was having a massive theological discussion about the trinity.

Company Commander. Power Weapon and Plasma Pistol, 4 Plasma Vets, Officer of the Fleet, Chimera with Extra Armour.

2 Priests

Platoon A

Platoon Command Squad With Lascannon

Squad with Officer (Power Weapon, Melta Bombs) and Commissar (Power Sword)

Squad with Officer (Power Weapon, Melta Bombs) and Commissar (Power Sword)

Squad with Officer (Power Weapon, Melta Bombs) and Commissar (Power Sword)

Squad with Officer (Power Weapon, Melta Bombs) and Commissar (Power Sword)

Heavy Weapons Team 3 Lascannons

Heavy Weapons Team 3 Lascannons

Platoon B

Platoon Command Squad With Lascannon

Squad with Officer (Power Weapon, Melta Bombs) and Commissar (Power Sword)

Squad with Officer (Power Weapon, Melta Bombs) and Commissar (Power Sword)

Heavy Weapons Team 3 Lascannons

Heavy Weapons Team 3 Lascannons

This army list clocks in right on the money and 1500.

The idea is that I have more Lasscannons that you have metal boxes. Coupled with the 60 stubborn, re-rolling to hit guardsmen with lots of power weapon attacks, this army intends to advance into the jaws of hell! The Company Commander also drives by and softens up units before attack with plasma gun goodness. I don’t care what the “meta” says, plasma guns are awesome. A perfect answer to terminators. I think that the main list I will fall down against is massive horde armies. I.e. lots of Orks or Nids. But since I play competitively not a lot (expect against Dan) I think I could be ok.

Highlighting White.

How exactly do you highlight white? Let’s break that down a little. White is the existence of all colours on the colour spectrum. It is I suppose not a “colour” more an orgy of colours and light. Or something. Anyways, how do you “highlight” that? Surely making brighter something that is... brightness is a bit of a waste of time?

Yes. That's my opinion on the subject. But wait! Today’s post is on that. So how did I resolve this issue? Well, having talked to Jo (whilst on a bus) he said to use a 50/50 mix of skull white and space wolves grey. My concern was that I am trying to repaint the storm troopers ready for blog wars 3 as I really speed painted them beforehand. Their armour is completely white, and pretty blocky at that. That's basically how I've always painted white, to differing results. These guys did not look good.

What I eventually arrived at doing was washing them with badab black over the white and this evening I have worked up from that with a coat of space wolves grey/ skull white and then a coat of thinish skull white for highlighting. Dont get me wrong, I don’t think I will win a painting comp with them, but they look a darn sight better and I'm really happy. I've got some fairly grainy pics below:

These are basically of the sergeants from both squads. One of which has been done, (1st pic) and the other hasn’t (2nd pic). The wash and following layers, though you can’t see it from the pictures that clearly have really added that definition that I was craving and I'm really pleased with the outcome for amount of effort I've put in. It only took me about 90 mins for the first 8, which for me is fast!

More Star Wars Pics

Well, that pic i sent Bell of lost souls got posted way sooner that i thought (ie 24 hours). so here is a few more pics and some old ones at the top of the blog so you havent got to scroll down :)

Personal Acheivement unlocked - get models in local store's cabinet (where they still are lol)

The duel - the reason that luke is named is that every single model (80+) is named. so there are battlestar galatica squad, star trek squad etc etc.

Star trek squad - Wesley Crusher and the Crushettes. (Wesley is hard as nails)

Outflank! i lost this game....

This was Jo's Models in the best army nomination cabinet

Humming ride of the valkyries (i also lost this game)

Transformers Squad

Darth in the Cabinet

The Whole Army

Im not dead!

So yeah, getting a bit lax on the updates of late. “real life” or whatever that is, is beginning to try and take over for me. Standing for election does that you I guess. Anyways, just wanted to share a few pics of the rebel troopers that I’ve nearly finished!






As you can see, they aren’t based yet. But you can kinda see the rebel alliance icon on the side of their heads. These guys are red squadron, still need another 4 manly colours! Any ideas? Obviously they can’t clash with orange jump suit, or the red rebellion logo.

Fighting Fire With Fire

Fighting Fire With Fire
So, in the last two days I’ve painted 3 models (including a new “me” – more on that later) and won twice whilst drawing once. I’ve been using this list.


1st game against stranded ninja

We played spearhead with 5 objectives. However, since we were playing 1750, I added 3 Hydras. He had a Land Raider, 2 Storm Ravens and far too many blood angels for my liking, and some terminators with Tyberos. He didn’t realise that all of my penal legion were outflanking, and then three squads jumped the Terminators in turn two. I think I killed like, 2? Eventually it came down to the fact that I was holding 1 objective, which he couldn’t reach because of the terrain, to his two. I finally managed to shoot both his scoring units dead and kept the death company off mine. A win on the mission objectives, but I did spend some amount of time playing keep away to be honest.


2nd game against World Eaters at GW Leicester

So, this was dawn of war with 5 objectives. Again, this guy had never seen this army before (barely even played me) so I let him deploy first and kept everything off. He had 3 squads of Berserkers, Khan, 2 Squads of Summoned Daemons, 2 very cool transformer type defilers and 2 squads of chosen.The random element of the penal legion is something I'm beginning to fall in love with, especially when it comes to getting knife fighters off right. I came on with my Vendettas on my left flank and began to pull his army away from the centre, which was where most of the objectives were. His chosen came on and popped one of my Vendettas. My favourite point in this battle promptly followed as my outflankers outflanked him, and promptly murdered him.




I managed to contest the objectives he was scoring, and drag him off the ones he was on to charge me, so I got a draw! Kudos to my opponent really, because he didn’t have to charge me, and didn’t have time to get back to his objective.


3rd game against Ian’s Ravenwing

This ended up being a dawn of war, kill points game. I reserved everything, and thought that I would really be screwed as everything in his army could move as fast as mine. So, a ran over to my extreme right this time, and over the course of three turns he ran at me in about 3 waves. This was great, as my plasma death storm troopers and Lasscannons made him wade through his own superhuman blood. Yarrick didn’t even get out of his Fortress of Flying Arrogance until the 6th turn when his Vendetta moved flat out and they all successfully jumped without dying in front the last biker squad.



I promptly received the charge from Chaplin and his dress wearing buddies, and was wiped out to a man. Though it did make for a suitably epic end to the game! The highlight for this game was killing Sammael with Penal Legion. I literally killed the Master of the Ravenwing with a Knife, blowing his flying Land Raider out of the Sky.

And, as promised, here is a picture of the new “me.” As you can see, he is wearing yellow! (My favourite colour.) And I thought that it would be cool to have a pink las pistol!

Cry God For England, Harry, and St George!

The Defence Of Hades Hive

So. Imagine the scene. Your home is under attack, you need to defend yourself from your most hated enemy. Following a rousing speech given by your commander, you mount up into your gunships and head for the war. Sounds like Apocalypse Now don’t it? Well, it is in fact the Defence of Hades Hive, which is this week’s army list. This list is themed around a couple of key bits of text from Armageddon Lore. These mainly include, at the Hive Gangers fought vicious tunnel wars with the Ork burna boyz and looterz as Hades Hive fought to a man during the Second Armageddon war, and that Tanks were rolling of the production line and straight into the fire fight.

So the idea is that Yarrick has gathered around him a strike force to try and breakthrough in a key position in the defences. Check it out.
Commissar Yarrick
Storm Troopers (8) 2 Plasma Guns, Plasma Pistol and Power Sword Sarge
Storm Troopers (8) 2 Plasma Guns, Plasma Pistol and Power Sword Sarge
Storm Troopers (8) 2 Plasma Guns, Plasma Pistol and Power Sword Sarge
Vendetta
Vendetta
Vendetta
Penal Legionnaires x5


The whole force has scout, representing the home turf advantage that Hades Hive gives. Where the army theme really comes into its own is the Penal Legionnaires are original Necromunda models. Beyond awesome I know. Follow that up with some vague steel legion styling on the Vendettas and jobs a good un. The main way this would work is to outflank probably most if not all the Penal guys. They are no good in your deployment zone, and so much fun with rending. Seriously, using them as though they had a death wish is hilarious.

The Vendettas all fly around together, using their speed to hunt as a pack. If I were to try this army, I would consider swopping Plasma out for Melta, but it depends. I rather like the idea of cracking the plastic boxes open with lots of lasscannons and then jumping out and shafting its juicy insides with a small white hot sun. If I decide not to take the Custodians to the GT, then I would take something like this, because it is so different to anything I have. Plus there is a theme, which is really important for me this year. I want to have models that people look at and actually go “wow” or “neat idea” so its gotta be good, you know?

Tanks fr th Mmrs

So. Tanks. That isn’t a misspelling, although its a slight homage to a Fall Out Boy song. I just really wanted to see how many tanks I could fit into 1500 points of Imperial Guard. 8 is the answer on this occasion. More importantly 6 of these are Leman Russes. Considering the maximum you can fit in a force organisation chart is 9, I’m pleased with that although im sure you could fit a couple more in if you really went for it. As it is, this is a little bit more balanced for me.

Drive By Lightning and Fire

HQ
70 Psyker

Troops
150 Veterans, 2 Flamers, Chimera with Extra Armour
150 Veterans, 2 Flamers, Chimera with Extra Armour

Heavy Support

Squad Mortarion
165 Leman Russ Tank with Battlecannon and Lasscannon
245 Leman Russ Executioner With Lasscannon and Plasma Cannon Sponsons

Squad Alpharius
165 Leman Russ Tank with Battlecannon and Lasscannon
220 Leman Russ Demolisher with Lasscannon and Plasma Cannon Sponsons

Squad Curze
165 Leman Russ Tank with Battlecannon and Lasscannon
245 Leman Russ Vanquisher with Lasscannon

1500 Points




So, how does this army list work? Well. It shoots stuff. The plain Leman Russ tanks are there to take the hits in theory for the other ones. They are sprinkled around with the “rarer” variants to allow balance. Specifically, the Vanquisher pairs off with its partner and hunts armour. That’s why every tank has a hull mounted Lasscannon. Not the cheapest option, but it gives me 6 mobile Lasscannons. These two hang in the backfield slightly and just shoot stuff.

The executioner fulfils the anti infantry role and that pair works together to nail large mobs of Orks, or other things. This squad is paired with the Demolisher’s squad in an aggressive role, with Squad Alpharius being able to fulfil both anti infantry and anti tank roles, with none of the main guns lower than strength 9, and a pair of plasma cannon to boot. These four Tanks choose where they want to be and control that bit of the field.

The Chimera Veterans don’t get out. If they are out of their tanks, then they are probably dead. The only instance which comes to mind is when both squads plus the psyker get out and jump one squad, toasting it to death rather appropriately with Lightning and Fire. In the main, the chimeras will fit in behind the main body of the Alpharius and Mortarion, protecting them from infantry with heavy bolters and multi lasers.

Overall, I think that this would be a fun list to play. It wouldn’t necessarily win many games. Really you can choose to hang back and just blast away or really try and ram a lot of Armour 14 down your opponent’s throat. Av 14 is one of the major bonuses of this list, that coupled with a large amount of large blast templates. The main thing I can see as being a weakness is being outflanked or taken apart from the sides. This is why the chimeras nestle in behind, just near enough to react and shore up a flank. Only slightly behind them Curze picks of threats from afar. The easiest way to secure not being outflanked is to start on a flank. Deploying second and rolling up one side allows you to almost turn the battle into a lengthways engagement, something that would play right into my hands.

Next time: The Defence of Hades Hive